Quick note: Facebook posts, tweets, and essays will continue as usual, but I’m taking a few weeks off from the podcast. The next episode will be released on July 14, 2014.
About the podcast…
The first Work Stew interview was released in February 2011. I spoke with Gretchen Peters, an intrepid investigative reporter who explained how she went from a job on Rodeo Drive to a hut in Afghanistan. Since then more than 70 other interviews have been released; you can view a complete list here.
The ten most downloaded interviews to date are these:
A former CIA spy does a reality check on the TV show ‘Homeland’—what rings true, what doesn’t, and the scene that made her tear up.
A newspaper cartoonist explains what it takes to be funny seven days a week, for more than sixteen years.
A husband-and wife team who make their living as long-haul truckers describe their life on the road.
The voice in my GPS describes how she got there. Turns out she’s an accomplished singer and songwriter.
A writer of closed captioning for adult films explains how he got into such an unusual line of work and how he feels about it. One listener commented, “See, there ARE jobs for English majors!”
A particle physicist describes what it’s like to be focused on topics thatmost of the world knows nothing about.
A certified mediator explains why he loves getting involved with other people’s disputes.
A comedy writer on the path he travelled to arrive at his role on Comedy Central’s hit show Tosh.O.
A long-time flight attendant who recently retired from the airline industry to become…a gorilla caretaker. Seriously.
A marketer-turned-cook describes how hard she works, how little she earns—and how much she loves her new career.
Why a podcast? Work Stew is a place for people to share their thoughts and stories about their working lives. Essays are one way to do that, and in-depth interviews are another. The hope is to build, over time, a rich collection of distinctive voices, captured in both the written word and the spoken word.
How to listen? You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or you can listen to all of the episodes here: Show Notes and Audio Players
Suggestions? New episodes of the Work Stew podcast are released every two weeks. To suggest an interview subject for a future episode, please write to kate@workstew.com.
Finally, in other recent work-related news…
- You could have grown up to be a professional mermaid, or merman.
- Mandatory workplace cheer—it’s a thing.
- The mayor of Reykjavik has quite possibly the best ‘career path’ story of all time.
- A CEO is more likely than, say, a nurse to be a psychopath.
- Workplace dress codes can get so complicated.
- Buckyballs—”the world’s best selling desk toys”—are being discontinued.
- Seismologists in Italy were sentenced to prison for failing to predict an earthquake.
- You can make up to $100,000 a year diving for golf balls.
- Career re-entry after taking time to be a stay-at-home parent is in fact really, really hard.
- Aspiring to be a wide achiever may be more satisfying than aiming to be a high achiever.
- And Cal Newport says we shouldn’t sweat so much about following our passions.
These types of stories are posted (almost) every day on Work Stew’s Facebook page and via Twitter. I seek them out, because reading about other people’s work lives—no matter how distant they are from mine—helps me to ponder my own career conundrums in more creative ways.
Please feel free to chime in with your own finds and thoughts at any time. I stir the stew, but it’s the many morsels from far and wide that make it rich.
Work Stew 